I Met a Guy in Here …

I met a guy in here named Gary from Southside Virginia. He’s in his thirties and has a high school diploma. Problem is, he can’t read, write, do simple math, or tell time. Some school district around here decided it was easier to pass Gary on than try and educate him. Now, he gets a guy he trusts to read him letters his mom writes and then write her back.

            

School isn’t an option. Spaces are limited. He has a diploma so he’s ineligible. If he was the only man I met in here who’d been mishandled in school I’d be concerned, but he’s not. He’s one of dozens of Jaspers, and Juniors, and Rickys, guys who come from families who generationally lack basic education skills and who likewise generationally know all about prison. That makes me angry. They are the outcasts. It isn’t a racial issue. All the names I just wrote are white guys.

            

I wondered, as I finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs – a guy who though caustic and intense saw a massive failure in America’s education system – how we expect people like Gary to buy into the “American Dream” myth when they are so far removed from it. There’s a whole lot of Garys out there, outcasts, and lepers, who are left out and they will eventually overwhelm the system. The answer isn’t to ignore them or shun them or worse, send them to prison. Am I my brother’s keeper? The answer seems obvious.

            

I met a guy in here named Dipper. That’s not his real name. It’s what the guys call him. Dipper stuck because he was known to take a dip of any drug. Crack or powder cocaine; heroin; PCP; crystal meth; embalming fluid laced joints. Dipper used them all. Don’t think that drugs have an effect on you? Talk to Dipper. He’s the embodiment of “this is your brain on drugs.” You know the old public service announcement where a guy put a frying pan on the stove and said, “This is your brain,” then cracked an egg in the pan and said, “This is your brain on drugs.” Dipper’s elevator doesn’t go to the top floor. He told me the other day, “I’m a frigment of my own imagination.” That’s right, a “frigment.”

            

It’d be hilarious except nothing in his prison experience makes him want – or need – to change. He is an addict and he will remain an addict. He’ll leave here in sixteen months and get high his first day out. And, he’ll stay high until he’s arrested again or worse, kills himself. If it was just Dipper you could say, “O well, lose one every now or then.” But Dipper is like most of the drug users in here. They just can’t stop.

           

I used to think (you know “BA” – before arrest) that drug addiction was just a matter of will power. Then, I spent three days watching a young man – a boy really, just eighteen – go through heroin withdrawal. His body craved the drug even as he convulsed and poured sweat; even as his bowels released and suffered from dry heaves. I realized it wasn’t will power. Will power is one of those self-righteous words we use when everything’s going right. Then, the storms of life hit and we come face to face with all our foibles and failures. Dipper’s an addict. Sending him to prison won’t change that. I don’t know what will, but it’s not this place.

            

I met a man in prison named Thomas. He’s a decent guy, the same age as my older son. The world didn’t deal him a fair hand. His father, a chemical engineer – was abusive. He told Thomas he wasn’t worth a damn. “You’re not bright. You're not motivated. You’ll never amount to anything.” It was worse for his younger sister. She was sexually abused. And no one paid attention. After all, they were a nice middle-class family.

            

Thomas became depressed and withdrawn. He started using way too many drugs. He started acting reckless, wanting to die. His sister quit eating and ran away more than once. Thomas landed in prison; his sister was given over to a loving aunt and uncle in Oklahoma.

            

Thomas’s time in prison wasn’t always easy. A young, skinny white kid makes a prime target for the predators. He fought a lot. But, he never lost hope; he never gave up. And his sister? She graduated high school and won a scholarship to a college in Oklahoma. Thomas leaves in thirty days. He told me he wanted to write me when he got out. I’m more of a father to him than his own dad, he said. I found that ironic. Thomas needed me in here to talk to as he struggled with his anger and hurt of his dad. My own sons go on without me.

           

“Get out and you lead a beautiful life. Be the man you know deep down you are.” I’ve told that to Thomas a dozen times. I’ve said it to other guys to get them to see they aren’t this place. Those are words I wrote to myself early on when life was crashing in on me in here. “Be the man you know you are.”

            

I have met hundreds of Garys, and Dippers, and Thomases in the past five years. Each of them has a story. I’ve met dozens of men who I don’t like, who have no remorse, take no responsibility for themselves or their actions, who have behaved in such violent, inhuman ways to warrant separation from society.

            

And then I’ve met others, those on the outside looking in. For them, prison isn’t the answer. It certainly won’t solve the problems that led most of them to end up in here.

            

I met a man in here … They’ve made an impression on me: their failures and their successes; their humanity. They shouldn’t be forgotten. They are the fathers, brothers, and sons of this nation.